Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday was my birthday! I had a nice, fairly quiet day. Quiet, that is, if you don't count the hour before supper when Andrew went running around the house yelling "Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday!" at the top of his lungs. I got to have a nap in the morning with Aaron when he fell asleep. I asked Dave if I could sleep for 20 min. or so, and was woken up by the phone an hour and a half later. Shortly after I woke up, Dave and Andrew returned with these (picked by Andrew):


I had to bake my own birthday cake and make my birthday supper, since I'm just in that stage of life, I guess. But I decided not to be grumpy because it was just my little family I was celebrating with. Instead I decided to just enjoy my family and make the table a little fancy. Considering the amount of unbroken nice bowls and our complete lack of nice table linens, I set the table as best I could:

I remembered these little kitty napkin holders my friend Lisa gave me for my birthday about 12 years ago. Aaron and Andrew loved them.


We had supper and then ate carrot cake. The recipe calls for buttermilk, but we subbed coconut milk and got a bit more sticky result that was edible by Andrew. Unfortunately this meant we had to bypass the cream cheese icing, so it wasn't quite as good as it could have been, but still very delicious.


I got two birthday phone calls from friends, and spent a lot of time on etsy, trying to decide how to spend the money my in-laws sent me, which made the day extra fun.

One of the best things about this year was that Andrew was more aware that it was a special day, and Aaron picked up on the excitement. Andrew spent much of the day reviewing how he and Dad were going to light the candles and sing happy birthday and then we would all eat cake! Aaron sat at the table saying, "Hap Birday, Mommy. Hap Birday!" It is really lovely to just be able to enjoy your children and have them delight in your special day with you. Moments to cherish, I tell you.

Sometimes I wonder what they're thinking

Andrew is at that age now where he leaves these funny little vingettes of toys around the house. I always try to shoot photos of them before Aaron comes along and trashes them. I got to have a nap with Aaron yesterday while Dave watched Andrew and I woke up to find this in the middle of the kitchen floor:

Later, after a cooling off period in his room, I found this little set up:

I wondered what the guys were looking for, until I went to move the magnadoodle:

It only took us 15 years to get around to buying one

That's right. We have been married 15 years in two months, and we have never owned a vacuum of our very own. When we were first married, and lived in a tiny, grungy apartment in B.C., we simply ignored the carpet. We were hardly ever home, we had no pets, we took our shoes off at the door and we never ate on it. Then we moved to a house in Langley and our border (one of those people who is thoroughly capable at all the practical things I am inept at -- we never could figure each other out) borrowed her parents'old one. Which still didn't stop us from ignoring the carpet most of the time. When we moved to Saskatchewan, there was a central vac system, so we used it. But about a year ago its suction started deteriorating until it got to the point where is basically just moved the dirt along. With two small boys and a cat, this has been a total disaster for the carpet.

So, as part of our push to get our house in a state where we can stay sane this winter, we bought a vacuum. And now I am spending about an hour a night scrubbing the carpet until the damn thing is at least uniformly discoloured.

This is the special attachment we received with it. I don't know if Dave bought it as extra or if it was a bonus. Its called the Power Paw. I don't know if you can read it, but it says its for picking up pet hair and doing stairs. Then in small print under the frightened looking cat is says : Do not use on animals.


It was good that they packed the vacuum in lots of styrofoam. That way, after Andrew was done constructing "stairs"(seriously), I could test it out on all the debris.


Also, why is it that when you look at photos of other people's children they are blissfully playing with their pretend food in their pretend kitchen, while my son


is making pancake and leftover salad stir fry. Um, in between taking bites out of the cold pancake. I guess its time for fridge locks.

Rummage Sale

Our church has two rummage sales a year. The spring one is on the weekend that kicks off the yard sale season in May. The second one ends it and falls the same weekend as all the trade / craft shows in town.

Anyway, as well as donating to the sale, it is also imperative that I go and buy something from it. So I have more things to donate next year. But seriously, often someone in our church is downsizing to a condo and thus dumping a lot of their fabric stash and / or linens in the process. Very occasionally there is even a wool sweater I can felt in the clothes section, or a pair of cords I can repurpose.

This was what I picked up this year:

Ten balls of polyester yarn. I was expecting this stuff to be somewhat soft, but when I opened it it proved to be that scratchy yarn your grandma used to make slippers out of. Well, okay, my grandma used to make slippers out of it anyway. It will suffice for craft projects for the boys and may even be used for me to learn to knit. One of the ladies offered to teach me, so I may have to invite her over for tea and cakes (she's an ex-Brit, so I think that would be appropriate) and let her teach me. But not until I've finished the Christmas softies I"m scheming and the English paper pieced quilt I have tugging at the back of my mind.
Also some sweet vintage fabric. Only one is faded - the rest are in really nice condition. I especially love the light blue with the eyelets. I think it might be a cute little summer blouse for me if there's enough. Or maybe a dress for my niece if theres not. I haven't opened it up yet.

Someone's embroidery UFO. The sections that are done on this are really nice. And because its not finished it has never been used, so the cotton or linen (not sure which) is in amazing condition. I am either going to swap this for some fabric, if anyone wants to finish it, or cut it up for quilt blocks.

Things that Bug Me: Update

Well, I took all the stuff in my basement to the dump, and all the odds and ends to the rummage sale, including all the drifter toys.

Yeah, drifter toys. You know the ones. The ones that seem to serve no purpose other than to get taken out and left in another room. They are never actually played with, but only serve as painful things to step on in the middle of the night, or odds and ends that don't fit in any of the toy bins. Becuase they don't fit in any of the toy bins, they get put in the "doesn't go with anything else"bin. Which is the one Aaron systematically dumps every morning. He then spreads its contents all over the floor and leaves it. Andrew then picks up some of the odds and ends, pretends they are plumbing pipes or snacks or bird food and relocates them. And then forgets to ever play with them again, leaving them conveniently in the middle of the shoe mat or on his desk or under the kitchen table. Where I find it at night (asking myself "What IS all this stuff under the kitchen table?") and put back in the odds and ends bin. So I gathered them all up and let them clutter up someone else's house.

Unfortunately this included the food cutting set that I got for Andrew last year. It was such a great idea, and he loved to pull all the food apart and scatter it all over the house. But even since I gave it away I have found a pea pod, half a pineapple and a corn husk in various corners of the house.

So that is one less thing to irritate me during the winter.

Andrew's room is almost finished. I just need to hang a few more things on the wall and it will be done. Photos soon, I promise.

Swap News

My partner received her Sept. mini quilt, so I can post about it now! The theme for Sept was owls and mushrooms, which totally didn't inspire me. The whole owl craze is one that I'm not too big on. My memory of owls is a pair of ceramic owls my sister made in the 70's that my mom has displayed in our house ever since. Those two brown owls stared at me with their weird, empty hollow eyes for too long for me to be excited about the all new retro re-emergence of this trend. Knowing me I will eat those words in about two weeks, but there you have it.

SO, I opted to just do the "plain Jane"swap. That basically means you make whatever you want. This is what I made (yes, that is a cd case underneath it):



I have wanted to make one of these zig-zag quilts for a long time now. I think they have a really simple, graphic vibe to them. When I ordered some fabric from Starlit Nest -- she has great fabric and lots of fun ways of selling it, you should check out her shop -- she sent along these 4" pop garden charms as a little bonus. Since I only had five of them, I decided to do a very tiny zig-zag. The squares started out at 2", which means these triangles, after stitching and cutting and stitching are about an inch and a half or less. It was a really fun little quilt to make, and I made enough triangle squares to make myself one too.

I have also almost finished my October quilt. The October theme was "out of the box"(ie- non square quilts) and I am making a very silly quilt. Fortunately my swap partner is British and very cool, so she should appreciate it. Here's a peek at it:


I also sent out my next fabric and chocolate swap package. This is such a fun swap that every month I swear its going to be my last month becuase I have too much to do. And then I go and sign up for it again in my sleep. Anyway, this is a peek at what I sent this month. Amazingly, I even found the bottom two fabrics at my local shop:

I think that catches me up on swappy news. There should be some packages on the way for me soon. I'll show you what I get when it gets here.

God daughter's Quilt Progress

I know, I've been working on these forever and you're probably all bored of them. Or maybe I'm just projecting. Anyway, I am now half way done these quilt blocks! Once I'm done them it will be pretty quick to complete the quilt tops, pin, quilt and bind them. I'll be done all the tedious squaring off and matching points part.

So now I'm wondering if they're too busy. Maybe I should put a 2"border of cream around each block to calm it down a little bit. This is really your call, Sharon. That would look something like this (but it would be less bright than the white and cleaner than the carpet):



In other, related news, we finally gave up on our evil central vac system and bought a vaccuum. It should be delivered by the end of this week. I'm excited because then I can actually stain remove the upstairs carpet and pick up all the cat hair and litter dust on the downstairs carpet. And its got one of those allergy filters, so it might even improve Andrew's breathing a little bit. If you don't hear from me for a while, you know its because I'm busy scrubbing carpets and vaccuuming vents.

Interesting . . .

I'm not much of a linker (bad blogger! bad blogger!) but I just read this and its worth a read. I actually totally agree with him.

pliers crush

pliers crush
Originally uploaded by heshta

This is from a group I just found of Flikr -- "I Crush Your Head". Aah, brings me back, it does. Brings me back.

I'm crushing your head! I"m crushing your head. You are a flathead!

I Don't Know Where He Gets His Fashion Sense From . .

It must be his father. Yeah. That's it.

Of course we couldn't just wear this around the house. We had to wear it to playschool.

Five Things That Bug Me

Fall is here, and winter will be closing in soon. I know that sounds dramatic, but we often get our first snow around the 15th of October. Once winter is here, we spend a lot more time in the house. Last winter was really, really long, and by the end my house was driving me mad. I made a few changes last March and April, but not enough to make our house really feel like a home, or that added enough colour and interest to make this winter less white.

So I have decided to tackle five things that bug me before winter comes. You know those things, the ones that are always there at the back of your conciousness whenever you are in or walk by that space.

I think I've done two so far:

1. Remove wallpaper from the kitchen. The wallpaperers left a one inch overhang on all the seams of this wallpaper. When Andrew was 2ish he peeled them all apart and left these gapes in the wallpaper. I finally got rid of it. Cleaning under the appliances and painting the kitchen is #4.

#2. I painted this bulletin board and the chalkboard ( remember? ) and Dave finally got a chance to hang them up today. This led to a general, and much needed tidy in the crafty corner (but not, unfortunately in the rest of the basement).


#3. Andrew's room. We finally got the hooks for dress up clothes and the cubbies (not sure what they're for yet) put up. But there's still a fair bit to do before it will feel like a real room, not just a bunch of stuff and a bed.
#4. Stuff to the dump. We replaced out old Ikea closet organizer metal basket-drawer things with two wardrobes in our bedroom. Did I post about this? I think I meant to but never did. Anyway, it put our room into the sparse but tidy category instead of the total eyesore category it was in before. We did not, however, throw out the drawers yet. The frames are bent and don't actually hold the drawers anymore, so its not worth keeping. We also have a bunch of boxes and ramdom debris that needs to go to the dump.
#5. Put something on the walls in the living room. I rearranged the furniture to make it more cozy, but we still have these very blank beige walls to contend with. I really need to stop second guessing myself and just throw something up there.
#6. Oh yeah. Clean under the fridge and stove and paint the kitchen.

I'll let you know how I do on the other three and a half.

Fall Frolic

I couldn't figure out why the boys kept stopping and tripping in this huge field of leaves, until Andrew mentioned that it was full of mushrooms. The ground was covered with these massive clumps of them.
Hill climbing (artificial hills - silly flat Saskatchewan)
Back to the Dead Tree Stump

The rest of the tree is now in our back yard.

My Favorite . . . Coffee

I've decided to start posting some of my favorite things. I am not one of those people who rationally researches and reads reviews about things. Instead, I tend to pick up favorites from random places . . . trying things at someone's house, hearing about something online somewhere, picking something up in a drug store and loving it, or just walking in to a new store and trying something on. If I'm going to make a huge purchase, I do research, but for little things I tend to randomly accumulate favorites. So if you are the same sort of person, I thought I would help you, too, find some new favorites.

This is Kicking Horse Coffee. Roasted in Alberta, fair trade, shade grown organic coffee. Its great stuff. You can get it for 14.99 a pound, which is not cheap, but its good and ethical, so I think its worth it. My favorite roast is the Hoodoo Jo. I must admit that its mostly because I love the name. Its a dark roast that is not too bitter. If you like a medium roast the Kootney Crossing is good, too.


I will make this in the coffee maker, but my favorite way to make it is in my 2 cup bodum, where it comes out hot and frothy. Yum.

Batman

Andrew drew his first person today. Its Batman. The circle is the head, then it has two points on the top -- the points of his helmet. Then he has legs sticking out the bottom, and the yellow is his costume, of course. He drew eyes and a mouth, but then put stickers over top of them -- his mask. Such a funny drawing. He brought it as his "B" thing for playschool, and ended up giving it to his teacher.

Oh well, I know there will be more people in the future.

His second person (Batman again) had a body, arms and legs, so he's figuring things out quickly.

In the same way as the biking came suddenly, we had two breakthroughs that led to going straight from squiggles to people with nothing in between. Last week he learned to draw circles - something I never really tried to teach him. I just figured he'd pick it up somehow, I guess. The second was that I taught him how to hold a pencil properly the other day, so he had a lot more control.

Tools! Tools!

Aaron is going through a building stage. If it were up to him, we would spend all day in the garage, rifling through the tool box. When Andrew was this age, we did spend an hour or two a day rummaging in the tool box. Which resulted in tools all over the house and a broken tool box. As it is, Aaron has to be satisfied with some time hammering on screws Dave has drilled into a board.

He spends a lot of the day playing with the play tools and helmets and saying "Hammer! Hammer! Garage! Garage! Fix! Fix!".

Kid-Made Quilt Swap Is A Go!

So, it has come into being. I posted in my two swap groups, and got enough responses to start a little swap group of our own.

Andrew started making his quilt. His original plan was to make this giant quilt -- about four feet by four feet. I have pared it down to something closer to 25 inches for the quilt swap, and then we'll have enough left over strips to make a little lap quilt for him to use in the car, if he's still interested in sewing after he's done his first one.

He, of course, thinks that if 7 or 8 kids are participating, he should get 7 or 8 quilts. But thats just typical 4 year old thinking. He will be quitle happy just to get a package in the mail, I think.

We're started sewing and he's already getting better at sewing straight lines. We're using a 5/8 inch seam just because its the biggest line on the sewing machine guide and the easiest to follow. We sewed for a few days, and right now we're taking a break. I think that playschool days are too busy already for him to have the concentration left over for learning anything new. Still, its a fun start.

Kid - made quilt swap, anyone?

Andrew has started making his first quilt. He pulled out some fabric today and informed me he was making a quilt, and making a swap package to go with it. He said it needed to have chocolate (since his partner wouldn't be allergic to chocolate) and nice ribbons. I was pretty amused by this, but we've started making the quilt anyway. He picked out four fat quarters, so its probably going to be about 30 x 36 or so. Its pretty fun sewing with him, but I'm kind of dissapointed he wants to give the quilt away. And it tells me something that he didn't even consider that we should keep it. Quilts aren't for keeping, silly mom. We never keep any of ours, after all.

Anyway, if there's anyone interested, Andrew would love to swap with another kid who wanted to make a quilt.

Something on Andrew's Walls

My, I have a lot to say tonight. As my art teacher used to say about my answers to his introspective self-analysis questions (you asked, Dr G.), I do tend to be prolific.

In any case, now that Andrew's in playschool we are getting more and more crafts sent home with him. Not to mention the things we do around here. So I decided that it needed a home other than my refrigerator, where Aaron tears it down and drags it all over the house.



I got this idea from The Creative Family, written by Amanda Soule . She has a great blog -- lovely photos and inspiring writing. Its nothing fancy and cost about $5 -- some leftover hemp from my hemp jewlery making days, three nails and a few clothes pins.

It is hung ridiculously high up to be above toddler height for now.
I think we may do another one and hang pages from our favorite demolished children's books on it.

Andrew's 4th birthday

ndrew's 4th birthday
Originally uploaded by davenjilly

I was looking back and I realized that I didn't blog about Andrew's birthday. It was a few weeks ago, and it was small but fun. This is one of my favorite photos from the event. I love how all the kids are riveted by the new toys.

Sept fabric and chocolate swap

Sept fabric and chocolate swap
Originally uploaded by davenjilly

This was my haul from the Sept fabric and chocolate swap. Nicole sent these goodies all the way from Denmark! All the fabrics are totally to my taste and everything else was great, too. The brown strip is velvet trim. I have to get me some more of that, and put it on something just for me. Also, the amazing paisley one is coudoroy! I think that makes it the ultimate Jill fabric -- both paisley and cordoroy. Amazing. The fair trade milk chocolate is also fabulous. I wish you could get non-stale fair trade chocolate here. But that is about as likely as getting non-perished organic vegetable.s

Shopping in the Basement

At the change of every season in our household, we do what I like to call "Shopping in the Basement". This means we go down to the storage room and pull out all the boxes marked "Boys: Age X" and see what we can find for the coming season. I am very lucky that my main source for older boys clothes (Sharon's son Edmund) also has a fall birthday, so his clothes are usually the right size at the right time. And since Aaron is a little taller than Andrew was, I can usually get away with most of the clothes that Andrew wore, with a few additions here and there. And since that's where all the toys we're not using at present also reside, Andrew usually drags up a million toys (all the cluttery ones I stashed last time I decluttered the house) and plays with them for two days.

Today while I was doing the seasonal sort, Andrew made a grand discovery:


Thats right. Two years ago at the annual library book sale, someone had unloaded their entire collection of Peanuts Encyclopedias and the entire set of Golden Book Illustrated Bible Stories. And a series he's not big enough yet full of collected classic children's literature (think Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island, Nursery Rhymes, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Robin Hood, etc).

Andrew decided that he and Aaron were going to do some basement shopping of their own, and promptly spent the next 20 min. hauling all the books upstairs to Andrew's room. Aaron had this idea that he was going to take the whole stack at once, and I kept hearing these frustrated wails. But all I had to do was shout "Take them one at a time, Bubby!"and he would grab one and leave stacks of them just outside the door for Andrew to carry later.

Andrew then spent a good hour - almost unheard of for him -- by himself in his room, looking through the books.


At bed time he had picked out the two bible story books with David and Goliath and Sampson destroying the Philistine temple with his bare hands. Of course.

Attempts to welcome Fall.

This past weekend we had a Fall Bazaar at our church. It was a lot of fun, and included silly treasure hunt games, face painting, a bouncy castle, crafts, baking, guess the weight of the pumpkin type games and a fresh produce table.

Since I have this idea that it would be great to do something fallish (like use some of the apples I have sitting in my garage, maybe?), and I wanted to support the bazaar, (our first one) I bought each of the boys a pumpkin. We chopped them open and cooked them yesterday morning, with plans of making pumpkin pie together.

But then Andrew wanted to go on a LONG bike ride. So we embarked on a 2 hr (with stops) bike ride. And since the boys are sick, they both slept all afternoon. And then it was supper, and I had two cooked pumpkins in the oven a little boy who had been promised pie after supper.

So instead of this idyllic, charming moment I had planned, full of much measuring and stirring and rolling together, I made the pie during supper. While the boys and Dave ate. And then baked it quickly so that Andrew could have the promised piece before bed time.

You know what? Andrew ate the crust. And informed me that he doesn't like pumpkin pie. You'd think I would have remembered that from last year .

On a related side note, though, you can make a dairy free pumpkin pie. Just find a recipe with Evaporated milk, and substitute slightly evaporated (on your stove top) coconut milk.

Done Stash Building

When I first got into quilting, one of the things I thought would be great was that it would be a thrifty hobby. Quilting is all about scraps, right? Sure, your first few quilts cost money, but then you get lots of scraps and make lots of scrap quilts and then its thrifty. Right?

This was my theory. Then I went and bought the fabric for my first quilt. Locally. At $16 a metre, it was pretty painful. I wondered if this was a hobby I could afford. Perhaps I could just make one or two quilts a year.

Then I discovered online fabric shopping. It started innocently enough with buying a few fabrics to make a quilt that I liked in a magazine. And then a few metres of fabric (on sale for $5 a metre -- surely I could buy a few more . . .) for a baby quilt for a friend. Then some charm packs and two half yard cuts for another quilt, but since I was already paying for shipping, I might as well also get . . . Well, you get the idea. It was actually the idea of Andrew's I Spy quilt that took me right into full fledged fabric obsession. I went on a hunt, people. A hunt for a little bit of everything for that quilt. And discovered a lot of really funky fabrics. And the fabric / crafting blogging world. And Flikr. And more really cool fabric. And more ideas for quilts, which required . . . you guessed it . . . more fabric.

Now, I have eight quilts in potentia (plus the two twins I'm working on right now) worth of fabric, plus extra odds and ends (well, okay, fat quarters and half yards and yards) for baby quilts and softies and the like. That means, at my present rate of quilt making I have at least two years of quilts to make before I need to buy any more fabric, except a few solids (mostly white and cream) and some quilt backs and batting. And after that, I'll have all the scraps to work with, which was the original point of all this.

So, considering that I have three balls of hemp in various thicknesses and an assortment of wooden beads, two sets of watercolour paints and assorted half-finished watercolour sketchbooks, a drawer of seed beads for making daisy chain necklaces . . . and assorted other craft supplies, I think its time to stop stash building. I need to use up the fabric I have now, and the scraps of that fabric before I continue blithely purchasing more and more fabric.

To that end, I have one more shipment of fabric on the way, which includes backing for both of the quilts I am working on right now, and fabric for a wallhanging that will be my next project, and various odds and ends that fill out supplies for projects I was already planning. After that, friends, hold me to my word -- no more fabric for a while.

In the short term I am saying no more fabric until Christmas. But I am actually thinking that I should set a quilt limit -- say, 4 or 5 big quilts, not including the two I am working on right now.

Ironically, since I decided to do this a week ago, I have received a %15 off coupon offer from Fat Quarter shop, my fall/winter catalogue from Keepsake Quilting, a newsletter from Fabricland full of their fall sales . . . the pressure is on. So now that I have posted about this, I will keep myself accountable. You heard me say it.

Is It Really Worth It?

I'm feeling pretty frustrated by my attempts to be a more ethical consumer these days. I think a big, unmentioned factor when people talk about poor consumer practices is location. Here's a few examples of my frustration living in a smallish, isolated community:

1. Organic Food is rotten by the time it gets here. Seriously, by the time that more expensive, organic produce is shipped from California to Central Saskatchewan, it has travelled for serveral days. Because it does not have all the chemicals and waxes on it, its often already moldy or too soft or otherwise decomposing when it gets here. Or on the other hand, it was picked so early to prevent this from happening that you can't get it to ripen when you get it home. So I have given up buying organic produce.

2. Thrifting for wool is too expensive. I haven't done the math, but its pretty much just as cheap to order wool felt online as it is to drive an hour to Value Village to find sweaters to felt. The local store only has acrylic sweaters, usually and . .

3. Going to a thrift store is equated with being white trash. Yard sales are a socially acceptable place to find something, but the thrift store is frowned upon. Not only do thift strore finds meet with uncomfortable silence at playgroup, but the volunteers chronically treat me with disdain. It really doesn't encourage me to shop there -- if I can find anything.

4. Finding good used furniture is difficult. I get so frustrated when I look at Canadian Home and Country's Flea Market issue every year and they show these amazing things people have picked up at Flea Markets or just off the street corner. In Ontario and Quebec, where the country is older, it is really easy to find old, good, solid wood furniture. But here, its hard to find anything thats not pasteboard. We have second hand drawers and one of the drawers is broken. Our cheap wardrobes - a door hinge already fell off after two months. Our solid wood table and shelves we brought from British Columbia are a total rarity among people our age. Everyone buys their furniture from The Brick or Extra Foods.

The boys are fussy, so I won't even mention the lack of store options -- I hate going to the dollar store, but its the only place you can get some things in town. Presently, unless you have $50 to spend on kids shoes, you're stuck with the Bargain Shop or Extra Food for a pair of $12 Made In China specials. Unless I were to make everything myself with things ordered online and shipped here (thus totally undercutting the local economy) I would not be able to boycott poorly, inethically made products. And if this isn't all bad enough, I can no longer support my local bookstore, because it closed this month.

I don't know. I start to understand why people think my non-Walmart-in-the-city shopping and attempts to buy second hand or organic are crazy. Its because they kind of are. I'm feeling like maybe I should just give up until I get to a bigger center where I could join a fresh organic food co-op or actually have more than one thrift / used store to go to, and a flea market that happens more than twice a year. Ug.

A New Word!

So, lately I've subscribed to Bloglines to keep up with my blogs without having to click in to each page every day. Although I actually miss seeing people's entire blogs (I love the photos at the top, the sidebar features . . . even online I"m a clutter bug I guess), it is convenient. I also subscribed to the word of the day, and I"m excited to say that this week I actually got one that I didn't know:

Tinntinnabulation: a tinkling sound, as of bells.

Use it in a sentence, everyone: "I could tell I was late for church; tinntinnabulation resounded through the air."

quilt progress sept 15

quilt progress sept 15
Originally uploaded by davenjilly

8 done, 32 left to go!

Margit's Chocolate Zucchini Cake

I loved fall as a teenager. I loved waking up and walking to school in the crisp, clean air. It woke me up and prepared me for the day ahead. I loved going back to school, seeing all my friends, and getting back into the action of schoolwork and lunch hour / after school / in class socializing. I also loved fall because of the zucchini.

To most people, this might sound odd, because zucchini is a highly underrated vegetable. But you see, my mother hated zucchini, so to me it was an exotic adventure. An exotic adventure that could always be found at my best friend Lisa's house in the fall. This is because Lisa's dad believed in sustainable living, and so he grew almost all of their vegetables. In the fall, this meant that there was a LOT of zucchini at the Shaver's house. I would often saunter over around the end of my supper time (we lived about 5 blocks apart) just in time to witness Lisa, nose turned up, still at the table, staring at her zucchini. You see, having been forced to eat large quantities of zucchini every fall all her life, she hated zucchini. Which is why we were both perfectly happy to have me show up, eat her zucchini while her mom's back was turned, and get on with our regularly scheduled evenings. In other words: read comics, draw comic book characters, and invent our own universes full of quirky but fashionable talking animals.

As well as the supper time zucchini adventures, Margit, Lisa's mom, made the best zucchini cake ever. Next to her Pumpkin pie (which I generally managed to consume in large quantities in late October), Margit's chocolate zucchini cake was my favorite thing to eat at the Shaver's house. And yes, in case you're wondering, I was (and still am) one of those people that shamelessly arrives at people's houses, rummages through their fridge and cupboards, and eats their food. The compensation for feeding me, however, is great. Not only do you get my undying loyalty and friendship (whether you want it or not), but you also get strange and fabulous handmade stuff (depending on what I"m into at the moment this could include softies, quilts, housewares, headless stuffed animals, jewelery, poetry, masks or drawings of comic book characters).

However, I digress. Lisa's mom's zucchini cake is great. For years I wished I had the recipie. I had her pumpkin pie recipe and Lisa's Grandma's doughnuts recipe, but I did not have the zucchini cake recipe. So two years ago when I grew a garden and figured I couldn't mess up zucchini (I did, by the way. Three plants produced four zucchini.), I got the recipe. And now I offer it to you:

1/2 c margerine
1//2 c oil
1 1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 c cocoa
2 c grated zucchini
1/2 c buttermilk or sour milk

topping: 2 tsp grated orange peel, 1/4 c nuts or 1/4 cup chocolate chips

Blend margerine, oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix flour, soda and cocoa seperately. Alternate adding flour mix, milk and zucchini, then second half of flour. Stir until just blended. Bake in 9 X 13 pan or ring pan at 325 for 55 min.

I suggest the ring pan. I don't have one, and I find my cake is never quite as moist as Margit's was. But the, I've only been making it since I lived on the prairies and this is a Northern Ontario recipe, so the extra dryness in the air might also be to blame. You can tell I was bored in this photo, because I'm cutting the cake horizontally instead of vertically, which is the opposite of how I usually cut cake. I only diverge when I'm in desperate need of novelty.


In any case, make this cake. Make it often. And then invite me to coffee. I'll help you eat it.

Mini Quilt Swap - Aug -- goodies

Mini Quilt Swap - Aug -- goodies
Originally uploaded by davenjilly

This is the quilt I received in the Aug mini quilt swap. Isn't it cute? Its in these wonderfully cheery, bright colours, and is completely hand sewn (that was the Aug. challenge). The backing is red and the perfect white quilting shows up nicely against it. Abi, my swap partner, also sent along two fat quarters of peas and carrots fabric, which made me feel extremely spoiled, and this fantastic post card that is originally made by Hillary . Which just goes to show how the whole Flikr / blogland quilting community really is, since I am actually making a quilt with these fabrics AND Hillary is the Wee Wonderfuls designer who has brought me so much joy with her robot and spaceboy pattern.

Anyway, there I am going on a tangent. Thanks so much, Abi, for the fantastic little quilt. It is happily sitting above my dining room table now and shall soon be pinned to a wall somewhere.

Dead Tree

There are two parks within walking distance of our house. The one we usually go to is the "kids" park. It has an open field for assorted scurrying around and chasing games, a wading pool, some mysterious metal climbing / crawling equipment left over from the 60's, and a newer park area with modern, safe, clean lined equipment, safe for children ages 3 - 5, under adult supervision, who are not wearing clothing with drawstrings. Seriously, there are warnings on the play equipment. Everything is developmentally appropriate and has surely been tested on a battery of small 3 - 5 year olds under parental supervision using two way mirrors before it was allowed out into the real world (Quick, Jonny can get his head in between those bars! Make a note!).

The second one is a park that I am guessing dates back to the era of Participaction. Those of you who are younger, or not from Canada, would not be familiar with this movement. But in the 70s and 80s, there was this huge government push to get kids moving and active so as to later save on health care costs. This, of course, included something that has always amused me -- tv ads about excersise -- as well as swimming programs, skipping competitions and other weird non-competitive sporting activities. This park, for example, is basically a big plot of land with two artificial hills, and some strategic plantings of trees to encourage games of hide and seek and the like. It has a board as you enter that describes the fitness walk / run you can do around the park. You run, stop at the monkey bars, swing across them, run, stop at the sit up board (seriously, in the middle of a copse of spruce trees next to a park bench), do sit up, run, navigate the balance beam, run, do pull ups on the wood frame thing . . . you get the idea. Its a very silly park, which only gets used by my youth group on Friday nights when we're doing some ridiculous activity or wide game.

In our present circumstances, this park has a few advantages over the safe for 3 - 5 yr olds park. First, it has paved pathways, and surrounding those paved pathways it has trees, hills and open spaces. This means I can let Andrew bike around on the pathways, while still keeping him in my view (except when he is hidden behind a copse of strategically planted trees)and let Aaron run up and down the hills, play with sticks, and basically muck about without either slowing Andrew down or wandering into the oncoming traffic. We tried it for the first time today and it was a great success. We spent about an hour and a half meandering around. Andrew biked around on the pathways, and Aaron found a rare discovery: a dead tree stump.

Not only was the tree stump dead, but it had dry rotted to the point where he could pull it apart. Inside, we discovered, an abandoned insect colony had taken over the tree. Aaron spent about 20 min. pulling it apart and examining the stump. Andrew joined him, and the two boys spent an additional 30 min. pulling off pieces, checking out the tiny tunnels, trying to climb it (ok, only Aaron wanted to climb it - this has replaced "can I put it in my mouth?"test of earlier days), and generally mucking about. They were really sad when I realized it was 12:30 and we had to get home so I could feed them (though not as sad as I was when I realized Andrew was too tired to ride his bike home and I would have to carry his bike and tow both boys in the wagon).

This made me laugh, and think about how weird our culture is sometimes. Most parents wouldn't even let their kids touch the tree stump becuase it wasn't age appropriate or specially designed for playing with. It might be dirty or infested with bugs, or get a stain on their new Gap toddler jeans. They would have shooed their kids away and insisted instead that they walk the balance beam ( in order to properly develop their gross motor skills) or participate in a parent-led game of catch. We so carefully design and co-ordinate our children's play these days that we forget that we don't really have to do much at all. Play is actually what kids do naturally, with very little help from us.

It reminded me of when my friend Colleen and I (at age 4.5) spent a whole week melting snow into this puddle to make a giant "lake" puddle. Or when I used to make doll clothes for my Strawberry Shortcake dolls out of lilac leaves, feed them poppy seeds off of lilac plates and make them tiny stick tables and chairs. What great, imaginative times these were. I'm so glad I had so few toys that were specially tested and carefully designed to meet my developmental needs.

What is your favorite memory of playing with next to nothing?

What do you think?

I'm thinking of painting the kitchen this colour. I will remove the wallpaper from the bottom half of the wall and then I need to decide: do I want to paint the whole wall green, or paint the top half green and the bottom half cream? The wall behind the appliances will definitely be this green. I love this colour, but I can't decide wether I"ll like a whole wall of it. What do you think?

First Day of Playschool

Here he is, my big four year old (as of Saturday), all ready to go to Playschool. Note the look of slight concern mixed with steely determination. We have been talking about this since July -- "First we will go on holidays, then we will come home and the apples will be on the trees. We will pick the apples and then it will be your birthday. And after your birthday, you will go to playschool." I don't know how many times I have repeated this little litany over the summer. Enough times that Andrew had the time he needed to mentally prepare himself for playschool.

Today, I told him to get dressed in comfortable clothes that he could take off himself, becuase it was playschool day. He picked all "new"clothes (Sharon, are these all Edmund's or just the shirt?) since he is a big four year old boy now. We looked inside of his backpack and checked out the change of clothes and the snack bag that were there, so he would know what was inside. He packed Soxul Furry, in case he needed her. We put on our socks and shoes, got in the car, and went.

As we had visited last week, we knew which hook to put our coat and backpack on. We hung our stuff on the hook -- opening the backpack a bit so Soxul Furry could peek out and check on Andrew -- moved his name from the home to the school pocket, tried out the bathroom to make sure we could use it, and said goodbye. Andrew gave me a kiss, turned towards the kids and was gone.

When I picked him up three hours later he told me, "There were too many things to enjoy, mom". I'm not sure wether this meant that he was a bit overwhelmed, or that he was having a lot of fun. But in any case, he did fine. He liked the toys, and the story and apparently only needed help to open his snack bags, not for anything else. He was a bit dissapointed that the slide was hidden away, but told me that it only comes out when it snows. He also told me that some of the other boys had to be warned to be careful and stop climbing things, but he didn't need to be talked to, except when he couldn't open his snack. These things came out over the course of the day, as he processed the various things that had went on.

In the afternoon he went on a giant bike ride. Dave thought they would maybe go around the block, but they were gone for two hours and went in a huge circle around town. Andrew told me he didn't need any more of me, he needed to go on a bike ride with Dad. This was a little sad, but again, its his way of processing being at playschool by himself.

I was really proud of how poised and confident he was going to school. I was proud of him, and proud of myself for the choices I had made leading up to this. Some of you might remember here when I decided to go to the older kid library time with Andrew. At around the same time I decided not to put him in three year old playschool. I didn't think he was ready for 3 hrs of separation yet, and I didn't want to push him into it.
Instead, we went to library story time, which was only 45 min. He slowly adjusted to being there with the other kids, and really got to know and love Mrs Duncan, the librarian who does story time. I also decided to use the money I didn't spend on playschool to hire a teenager to play with the boys for an hour and a half once a week so I could get my youth group work done with less hassle every week. So he also became more attached to his babysitter, and cried when summer time came and she got a summer job. Around February or March he decided that it was okay to go to Sunday School without me.
I could have decided to just put him in Playschool, and let him learn to cope with the seperation anxiety. I don't know how many people I had give me sceptical sidelong glances of the "over-anxious possesive parent"variety when I told them he wasn't in playschool. I don't know how many times I felt foolish and over protective and defensive when I told people that he just hadn't been ready to go in September, and I didn't think I needed to push him. I know the general attitude around here is that seperation is good for kids. Throw them into babysitting or lessons and let them deal with it. In the end its good for them to be with other kids and be without mom and dad. And for some kids, maybe this is good for them. But I knew it would not be good for Andrew. So I waited and suffered the sceptical glances and critical looks, the same as I do for wearing my babies in a sling and breastfeeding my toddlers and letting my kids play with cardboard boxes and old tea tins instead of buying them toys. And today, when I saw my son walk into that classroom with confidence and courage, happy to tell me, "I met new friends today, mom. A whole bunch of kids are my friends now", I knew that I had made the right choices for us. And I was terribly proud to watch Andrew let go of my leg and the back pocket of my jeans and make his way into the wide, wide world.

The Dirt Fairy

We have almost hourly visitations from the dirt fairy at this time of year. This magical little creature carries a little plastic shovel and pail. As your child leave the house she places a little present in their boot. That's right. Its dirt. Maybe mom will be lucky, and the little child will haplessly empty their boot outside. More likely, the dirt will spread all over the floor as they kick their boots off . . (Boots OFF at the DOOR, AARON!). Or, even better, the dirt will stay inside the boot until your toddler decides to take them INTO THE LIVING ROOM and upend that lovely pile of sand all over the carpet. Oh the joys of the fairy kingdom.

And this is the back.

DSCN0591
Originally uploaded by Beaty Family Fun

Mini Quilt sent -- Aug 08

DSCN0590
Originally uploaded by Beaty Family Fun

Once more I forgot to take photos, but here are my swap partner's photos of my cute little mini quilt. The theme was hand stitching, so I had to hand stitch and quilt the whole thing. It is about 8 or 9 inches.

Originally, I was thinking of appliquing the birds on top of the muslin, but I knew I had to get everything prepped before I went away on holidays, and in the midst of the rush (and my ridiculous decision to make the picnic quilt), I couldn't get the circles to work.

So, plan number two was born: have the chickens peeking through the fabric. Which I did. And I love.

The funny thing was that I didn't get any further in the planning before I left, so at first I was just stitching around the chickens, and people would ask, "What are they looking at?"and I would say, "I don't know."

But as my vacation continued, this quilt became a symbol of the stuff I was working through individually. The chickens in their holes became other people, peeking out and possibly criticizing or gossiping about the one chicken who has broken free of the coop. And so that one chicken was born, and placed looking off hopefully into the distance, representing me. So this little mini is a reminder of what is most important -- not what other people think of me, but what God thinks of me. It is important to be who I have been made to be and to do the things I think are right, not to do what I think people expect of me or want me to do.

So, anyway, its a silly little quilt with a lot of meaning. And Abi says she loves it, which makes it all worth while!

Readiness

Last year, Andrew had a three wheeler big wheels type thing. Try as I might, I could not get him to pedal it. He would try and try to pedal and steer at the same time, but he just could not seem to do both at the same time. He would either pedal and steer off the sidewalk or steer and push with his feet. He could not seem to master doing both things at once. This June, he finally started to be able to pedal, but he still couldn't seem to master doing both activities at one time.

Although I know I should be patient and understanding, I found this particularly irritating. His friend Bea had been buzzing around on her trike since the previous summer, and she is only ten days older. His friend Lewis, who is an entire year younger, was already riding a bike. Why could my son not just get it?

So, although I liked the idea of getting him a bike for his fourth birthday, I was a little nervous. I wondered how long I would be holding onto the handle bars, practically dragging him around the block. But becuase I didn't want my anxiety to rub off on my child, I went ahead and agreed that we should get him a bicycle.

Four days later, we can ride all the way around the block. Although he's not a fast rider, he pedals and steers independently after only a few days of practice. He can operate the brakes, steer well enough to run over an apple, and get up to a speed where I almost have to jog to keep up.

This had me thinking today about development and readiness. I used to get frustrated with Andrew and think he was being stubborn when he wouldn't do things that I could see all of his friends could do. But then I looked closer, and I noticed that in some cases he didn't have the co-ordination to do it yet. The internal wiring just hadn't hooked up, and so it didn't matter how much I cajoled, yelled, threatened or argued -- it wasn't going to happen until his body and brain were ready, and until he was calm enough to follow instructions.

Our culture has so little patience for children. As babies they are subjected to endless checklists and developmental comparisons. As children we demand that they learn a certain rigid set of skills in a very limited, time frame, in an environment that often gives advantage to those kids who are practical minded, action oriented, and able to block out a lot of stimulation. Then we wonder why so many kids are being "left behind". Are they? Or are we just trying to drag them ahead of where they are ready to be?

I know it would take a whole shift in culture to do things differently than we do now, but sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be worth it to have a culture that is just more understanding and compassionate to children. A culture that is not so obsessed with performance and accomplishement at an early age. Then maybe we as parents could relax and enjoy the stage our children are at, and our children could relax and enjoy their childhoods.